A HISTORY OF SURREY 



road. Seeing how commonly the ancient or later county town of other 

 counties appears as the site of a burh, sometimes first so appears, we 

 should have expected a Surrey burh at Guildford, close to where the 

 Pilgrims' Way crosses the river Wey and where the existing mound of 

 the castle is suggestive of an Early English work. Both Eashing and 

 Guildford are named in the document known as Alfred's will as royal 

 possessions. Possibly Eastbury and Westbury may represent the original 

 strongholds of Alfred's time, Guildford a new fortification of Edward's. 1 



Wherever the central fortress of Surrey was, it was round the 

 border fortress of the county, part of the central fortress of the kingdom, 

 that the waves of Danish war broke in the latter part of the tenth 

 century. The consolidated Danish kingdom, 2 encouraged by the con- 

 fusion of western Europe and the weakness of Ethelred the Unready, 

 seeing too Scandinavian dynasties established at Rouen, in Orkney and 

 the Isles, and in Ireland, began to try to recover the Scandinavian con- 

 quests in England, where Danes and Norsemen still were in some cases 

 distinguishable from the English among whom they dwelt. But the 

 Danes were not content to recover the Danelaw, they fell upon Wessex 

 also. The great fortress of London with its citizens not merely traders 

 but good fighting men too was the chief barrier against them, and the 

 fortunes of Surrey and of Southwark its share of the fortress were as 

 usual involved with the fortunes of London. 



In 994 Sweyn king of the Danes and Olaf Tryggvasson, not yet 

 what later ages would have called king of Norway but king of the 

 Norwegians, came together up the Thames against London with ninety- 

 four ships, and were beaten back from the two fortresses and their 

 connecting bridge. It was on September 8, the Nativity of the Virgin, 

 and the saint was supposed to have specially shielded the Londoners. 

 For they 'did more harm to the Norsemen than they thought any 

 borough men could do.' 8 But the fortresses were not enough to shield 

 the whole country under such a miserable rule as Ethelred's. Sweyn 

 and Olaf passed ravaging through Surrey to the south-west, brought 

 their ships round to Southampton and wintered there. Then Olaf made 

 his peace with the English and swore never to come again as an enemy 

 to England. The chronicler adds in evident surprise that he kept his 

 vow. With his presence in the Thames that year is connected probably 

 a legend of St. Olaf of a later date. St. Olaf, we are told in the 

 Heimskringla, 4 came to the aid of the English against the Danes, when 

 the latter were holding London, and cut the Danish force in two by 

 carrying off London Bridge by hawsers fastened to his ships. The 

 exploit is probably impossible, even with a wooden bridge, and the 

 Danes never held London, for they could never take it. St. Olaf 



1 The mound at Guildford must be fairly old. It is partly artificial, yet it had a square keep 

 built partly upon it before 1202. The ground must have had some time in which to settle before even 

 part of the weight of a keep could rest upon it. 



2 Ancient Denmark was not only the modern kingdom. Besides including what Germany has 

 taken in Sleswick, it included the southern part of modern Sweden. 



3 A.-S. Chronicle. * Saga of King Olaf the Saint (vol. ii. p. 9, Laing's translation). 



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